Healing
by boysmom5
Summary: Set immediately following their departure from NY at the end of Avengers.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm really not sure if this is a one-shot, or not. Avengers is not my usual playground (except for reading). But I love Clintasha so much, I couldn't resist. :)**

Natasha Romanoff, known and feared the world over as The Black Widow, an assassin with almost no equal, lay in the middle of the lumpy double bed in a Motel 6, staring at the popcorn ceiling. She was waiting. Not for a mark to kill, or to wield her power of persuasion over, but for the opportunity to heal instead.

Waiting had never been her specialty. She was a woman of action. Waiting made her anxious. It made her figit. Waiting was the expertise of her partner, her equal.

Hawkeye, real name Clint Barton, was nothing if not patient. Natasha allowed herself a rare, small smile as she thought back to the time, early in their partnership, when she asked him to show her what he did. He took her up into one of his nests in SHIELD HQ where they proceeded to watch their handler, Agent Phil Coulson, work in his office.

After an hour she had turned to Clint and said, "No, seriously, what do you do?"

He had chuckled at her, she hated that back then, and told her this really was what he did, at least until he was ready to strike his mark.

He turned his eyes to hers as he said "mark" and it caused her to shiver inside. It hadn't been a year, at that point, since she had been his mark. Natasha shook her head and began to climb back down to where real people resided.

She looked back briefly and he smiled at her and raised his eyebrows with just a hint of mischievousness in his eyes. Silently he reached back and pulled an arrow from his quiver. Knocking it into the bow, he aimed at Coulson's office. Natasha, who had yet to learn her partner's, or anyone else's, sense of humor, lunged at him in what she was sure was an effort to save her handler's life. The shot went off just as she reached Hawkeye's side, and she screamed out a warning to Coulson as she pushed The Hawk off his perch. If he hadn't been ready for her, they both would have plummeted to the ground below. But Clint had expected her reaction and grabbed hold of a bar that held the beam he'd been sitting on to the ceiling above. He grabbed onto her with his other hand and they swang around to the other side and landed back on the beam. Still, it was all he could do to hang on. Natasha was scratching at his face and kicking at his shins.

Below, she heard Coulson holler up at them, asking them what the hell was going on.

"This bastard was trying to kill you," she screamed back at him.

"Barton," Coulson yelled. "Get your ass down in my office now."

Natasha was so taken aback by the man's response that she stopped her attack against Hawkeye.

He looked at her with a gleam in his eye and said, "Why don't we go see what Papa Bear wants?"

He set her down on the beam and walked to the other end where he could climb down more easily. She followed, dumbfounded.

In Coulson's office, Natasha learned that Clint had only been trying to scare their handler into spilling his coffee all over himself. He apparently did this often enough that Coulson told them it didn't even phase him anymore. She was nearly as livid about that as she had been when she thought Clint actually was going to take Coulson out.

Stalking out of the office she returned to her quarters where she began to vent her anger on her locker. Her fist was raised for a third hit of the metal door when it was grabbed mid-swing by her partner's, scratch that, she thought, *former* partner's, hand.

"Whoa, Nat," he said. "Calm down."

"Don't call me that!" she screamed at him. "What kind of sick person are you?"

He appeared to think on that a moment then replied, "I suppose it depends on who you ask."

His grin made her even more furious and she punched him in the gut with her free hand. Kneeing him in the face as he doubled over, she heard a satisfying crunch and hoped she'd broken his nose. She hesitated a moment as she waited for him to stand up again and he used that time to throw his body into her midriff and tackle her onto her bed. He pinned her there and she struggled uselessly. Her inability to make a move against him in this position caused her to panic. She changed from screaming obscenities at him in English, to the same in Russian. This apparently stirred something in Clint because the look on his face changed from jocular to something more tinted with fear.

He loosened his grip on her and she threw him off, then went in for the attack. He defended himself only minimally, allowing her to use him as a human punching bag, so to speak, to take out her frustrations. After a few minutes her anger began to abate and she leaned onto his shoulder. Her body shook, but she would let no tears fall.

"Oh, god, Natasha," Clint's voice cracked as he put his arms around her. "I'm so sorry. I'm such an ass. I didn't even think..."

The rest of his words were lost in a strangled sob. Natasha felt thick liquid drops fall onto her arm and looked up to see tears streaming down Clint's face, mixing with the blood flowing from his nose.

She shook her head at him, "Clint, it's not..."

He cut her of with an angry tone, "Yes! Yes, it is my fault."

His voice didn't scare her because she knew he was angry with himself.

He took her head in his hands, holding it gently but firmly so she couldn't look away.

"I swore to you I would never do what they did to you," his eyes were pleading with her for belief and trust. His voice was strong, but tinged with desperation. "I will never, never hurt you like that."

He rested his forehead on hers as they both tried to calm themselves.

That night she sneaked into his room and sat by his bedside for a change, and waited to comfort him from the nightmares that were bound to come.

And now, all these years later, she waited for the same.

Rolling onto her side, she stared at the open doors of their attached motel rooms. They had stopped at several hotels as they made their way up the eastern seaboard, leaving behind them the disaster in New York. Natasha had been looking for something specific, a single story motel, with an end room that had an attached room. His room would be at the end, and hers would be the cushion to protect the other patrons from his screams. She knew there would be screams. People like them, with their ledgers dripping in red, had vicious nightmares. They were the stuff that made horror movies look like Saturday morning cartoons, Clint had told her once. Then he'd forced her to watch Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons until she understood his meaning.

Inhaling deeply, Black Widow lifted herself silently off the bed and even more quietly walked to the open door. In their business they had to be quiet and it served them well in these situations as well. The first night Natasha had been at SHIELD they'd held her in a cell in the medical ward. She awoke from her nightmare in the early morning hours and found Hawkeye, the strange agent who had been sent to kill her but had changed his mind and recruited her instead, sitting in a chair at her bedside, his finger on the switch of the bedside lamp he had just turned on. She was a light sleeper. She'd learned early that if she didn't sleep with one ear open, the trainers in the Red Room would get the upper hand in her sleep. But this man had snuck into her prison room without waking her. She was impressed by his abilities, to say the least.

She walked over to the chair closest to his bed and sat and watched him sleep. Even in the room lit only by the porch light outside flowing in around the sides of the cheap curtains, she could see his brow already furrowed. There were signs of stress on his face. She had watched him sleep hundreds of nights. Sometimes she watched him just to see his boyish features. In sleep his face so often rested in a way it never did on even a good day. The hard years of his life that seemed etched into already deep creases, ceased to exist in his total repose in sleep. But not tonight. And not for many, many more nights to come.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Got two requests to go on with the story. I'm easy. :)**

_Clint sits across the table from Nick Fury. His superior hands him a file which he opens to find a picture of a young woman. She's beautiful by any definition of the word. Her long red hair and sparkling green eyes almost take away from the look of a killer. He can tell what she is without even looking at the file, because she looks like him. _

_He glances back at Fury and asks, "What do you want me to do?"_

_"Your specialty, Agent Barton," Fury tells him. _

_Clint nods and turns over to the first page of the file. _

_"But with a twist," he hears Fury speak again, only it's not Fury's voice. _

_Clint looks up and, instead of finding his commander, sees Loki. _

_"I want you to kill her slowly, intimately, in every way you know she fears."_

_Clint simply nods, "Yes, sir." Then he rises and walks out the door. _

_Suddenly he finds himself on the compound of The Red Room. It looks just like the intel photos he's seen. Walking in the direction he suspects he will find Natasha, he enters the nearest building. Down the dark hall to the right he hears someone crying and he follows the sound to an open door. Inside he sees Natasha. There is fear in her eyes. He rarely has seen that look, but he never could stand it. He has to get rid of whatever she is terrified of. _

_He begins to notice certain things about the scene. Natasha is on a bed, her wrists and ankles bound to the four corners. Clint feels his heart begin to race. He understands what's going on now and he has to stop it. He can't let one more of those bastards touch her. A man is coming toward the bed now. Clint tries to cry out to her to let her know he's there and he'll help her, but she can't hear him. The other man leans down and, using a knife, begins to cut open Natasha's shirt. Clint rushes into the room only to slam against some invisible wall. Shaking his head he looks up to find Loki with a haughty look and twisted grin. Clint tries to break through again and again. He can hear Natasha's screams and can see what the man is doing to her, but nothing he does gets him any closer. Loki is laughing. _

_"Her blood is on your hands now, archer," the demi-god spits out. _

_Clint looks down at his hands. They are covered, dripping with blood. His head snaps up as he hears Natasha's blood curdling scream. The man is standing over her, an arrow raised to plunge into her chest. Clint looks at his face and sees it is him. _

_"NOO!" he screams as he watches himself plunge the arrow into her chest. _

Clint looked frantically around the room, seeing everything and yet nothing. He tried to calm his breathing. His heart pounded so hard he could hear the blood rushing in his head. Reminding himself where he was, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He knew she was there. He didn't need any of his senses to tell him that, still, to breathe her faint scent calmed him. He turned toward the light in the room and saw Natasha silently watching him. To anyone who didn't know her, she would seem to be passive. There was no expression on her face, she didn't appear to be disturbed by his screams, the screams that finally woke him from his nightmare, the worst he'd had so far since "The Incident," as they were referring to it at SHIELD.

"Natasha," he whispered her name. It brought him some sort of comfort to say it now, to say it to her. He knew how close he came to destroying it all. If he had, if he'd killed her, like he helped in Coulson's death, he would have thought Loki merciful to split his skull the way he had threatened Natasha.

She rose and came to the bed. Sitting beside him and facing him, she picked up his hand in hers.

"Clint," she whispered back.

He took a shaky breath.

"I," he started but he faltered as he couldn't find the exact words.

She waited patiently for him to calm his breathing, her gaze never leaving his eyes, even as they darted around the room as if looking for an escape, or for the monsters from his dreams.

He wanted to tell her he was sorry but he knew she was tired of hearing that. He knew, too, that she had forgiven him before he'd even asked. He just didn't know how to get out of this downward spiral he's found himself on. The other agents he killed. His complicity in Coulson's death. The near destruction of the hovercarrier which would have resulted in the deaths of thousands of SHIELD members.

Clint hung his head. As he tried to gather his thoughts, he felt Natasha's cool hand touch his face as she moved her hand across his cheek to his chin to force him to look at her. She held his gaze as if willing him to believe in her forgiveness and understanding.

He gave her a grim smile and reached up to take her hand. He squeezed it gently then put her fingers to his lips and kissed them softly. She noticeably relaxed.

Keeping her hand in his he looked at her he said, "I know you were upset that I watched the security footage."

Natasha stiffened. Clint shook his head slightly at her.

"Nat, It was already there," he pointed to his head with his free hand. "He'd already put it in my head. I don't know when, I just know..."

Clint trailed off. He didn't want to tell her what Loki had essentially programmed him to do. Natasha could probably guess.

Sighing again, Clint scrubbed his free hand over his face. Shaking his head, he dropped Natasha's hand and moved to get off the bed opposite where she sat. He could feel her eyes following him as he walked toward the bathroom. Leaving the door open so Natasha didn't worry, he turned the cold water on the tap in the sink. As he let the water run over his hands, and occasionally splashed some on his face, he avoided eye contact with himself in the mirror.

The water didn't have the affect he'd hoped it would so he turned it off, dried off his hands and face and walked back out of the bathroom. He leaned against the wall and watched Natasha watch him. They were completely alone so she had taken down all her walls and masks. She wasn't playing a role or running an interrogation. He knew the look of worry and concern, of forgiveness and friendship, was real. Clint loved these moments and they'd had too few of them over the last two years. He gave her a lopsided grin and was about to push himself off the wall and walk back over to the bed when he thought he saw a flash of another emotion in her eyes. His breath caught in his throat and he felt his heart rate begin to pick up its pace.

It wasn't a new emotion. Clint had seen it a few times, increasing over the past few years. The last time was when Coulson had kindly re-routed Natasha's travel arrangements to her assignment in Moscow to include a brief layover at the SHIELD compound in New Mexico, and then given Barton a leave for two days. It had been just what he'd needed. He didn't mind his duty in New Mexico. It had been nothing if not enlightening. Who could argue with an assignment that included aliens, or demi-gods, as they'd turned out to be? But it had been without Natasha and he missed her company. Coulson had been stationed with him, but Clint's handler knew the partners had been too long apart.

Clint had taken Natasha out to dinner at one of the restaurants in the nearby town. They'd laughed like old times as they shared stories from their increasingly separate assignments. The next morning, before she'd had to leave, Clint took her to one of his most private nests on the base, one he was fairly certain Coulson hadn't even found yet. There they sat and just held each other as had become their habit over the years.

In the beginning, after Clint had brought Natasha in to SHIELD to give her a new life as opposed to the death he'd been sent to inflict, she hadn't trusted him at all. Even the slightest touch, outside sparring, by her "savior" set Natasha off. She'd been certain he, and possibly many of the other men at SHIELD, only wanted her for one thing. It had taken Barton a long time to earn the Black Widow's trust in that area.

After some time, and a lot of pain inflicted by Clint on anyone who even slightly inferred a more than platonic relationship between the two, and several fights over his attempts at "defending her honor" which she felt herself perfectly capable of doing, they'd settled into a very nice relationship similar to the one he had with his handler. Except there was touching, holding, tenderness. Clint told himself that he thought of her as a little sister, albeit a bad-ass little sister, in the way he thought of Coulson as an older brother, or, sometimes, even father. It was safer that way. Clint promised her he'd never treat her the way she'd been treated by the men in the Red Room, and he intended to keep that promise. But the longer they were kept apart, the more he questioned his supposedly platonic feelings for her.

She had looked up at him that morning. Her sorrow at having to go off on yet another assignment without him apparent. He'd smiled at her sadly, he felt it too. And then he'd seen it. The something else in her eyes he'd noticed many times before, but had tried to ignore.

"I'll miss you," she said quietly.

"I'll miss you, too," he told her, as he placed a hopefully chaste kiss on her forehead.

What was going on between them, he'd wondered then. And now he wondered again.

Finally pushing himself off the wall, he walked over to the bed, lay down, and gently pulled her to lay down next to him. She placed her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. He took the hand in his and stared at the ceiling.

This was safer, he thought. Staring at the ceiling, even with her pressed against him like this, was safer than being across the room and looking into her eyes. No woman had looked at him like that since he'd held his wife's dying form in his arms over 10 years ago. He knew he could never love like that again, and he wasn't about to use Natasha for his personal pleasure.

They were silent as they usually were when they held each other this way, the two never needing many words to communicate, and slowly their breathing evened out and Clint began to drop off to sleep. A fleeting thought flashed through his mind just before he did.

What if? What if he could feel that way again?

**A/N : I was just writing along when Bobbi suddenly told me she was tired of being left out of her husband's history, and I'd better figure a way to fit her in or she was going to give me a bad case of writer's block. ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

Clint slammed open the door of the small beachside cabin and stomped into the house. Ripping his coat off, he threw it rather violently onto the dining table situated near the front window. Natasha came in quietly after him.

"We're in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Nova Scotia, and we can't walk into a Podunk town without being recognized," Clint fumed loudly, pacing hard in the living room.

"Clint," Natasha tried to keep her voice calm. "What happened in Manhattan was on the news all over the world. It was an alien invasion, after all."

Clint glared at her and if Natasha had been a normal woman she would have cringed in fear. But nothing short of a "big, green rage-monster" could get her anywhere close to being visibly afraid, so Natasha attempted to stare her partner down. After a few moments, Clint tore his eyes away and continued with his thrashing.

"Perfect!" he screamed. "So, what am I supposed to do now? I'm an assassin, dammit. I need to have anonymity to do my job. How can I do that now?"

He looked at her for an answer and Natasha took a slow steadying breath before saying, "There's The Avengers."

The look Clint gave her now was drawing fairly close to "rage-monster" status and Natasha had to admit she was a little afraid, but not for herself, for him.

"No," Clint said in a low voice. "That was a one-time deal. We already talked about this."

They had, and Natasha had hoped that after a few more days to think about it, as Clint had promised Tony and Steve he would, he would see how this was a reasonable solution.

"Clint," Natasha started. But Clint cut her off angrily.

"I do not belong in The Avengers. I have nothing to offer," he stated, as if his words made it true.

Natasha let her confusion show.

"What are you saying, Clint?" she asked, her voice becoming higher pitched in her agitation. "How can you say you have nothing? You just helped save the whole damned world."

"You didn't need me for that," Clint retorted.

Natasha searched his eyes and saw that he believed what he was saying.

Before she could reply Clint pointed out what was apparently obvious to him, "I just picked off a few strays."

Natasha thought carefully for a moment. She had known for most of their partnership that Clint had major insecurity issues. He covered them well for other people. No one would have known through the entire battle in Manhattan what she knew, that somewhere inside, even during the firefight, Clint was fighting his own battle against himself. He always did a good job at pushing it aside and keeping it completely under control in the tense situations their jobs handed them on a regular basis, but it would come out later.

When she'd first started at SHIELD, she used to wonder where Clint would disappear to after a particularly difficult op. Finally, she thought she should bring it to Coulson's attention. That's when she started to learn about the cracks in her "savior's" armor.

"He's around," Coulson said, while directing his eyes toward the ceiling and waving his hand around in the air.

Natasha eyed him, completely missing the point. Her handler just nodded at her and looked meaningfully at the ceiling. That was when it had clicked. After that, Natasha would search in all the high and hidden places she could locate until she found him in one of his "nests." He was never sulking or feeling sorry for himself. He just honestly believed that at some level he wasn't good enough. That was what had driven him to be the best, to break records, then to break his own records.

Now she had to figure out the best way to bring him around. This was no ordinary situation. This was, as she had told him when he'd come back to her after she'd knocked Loki out of his head, "monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."

"You saved me from Loki," she said, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized her mistake. Clint winced at the mention of that name and began to shake his head.

Natasha attempted to explain further before things got out of control.

"When I was on the speeder and he was trying to shoot me down..."

Clint cut her off.

"Thor or Stark could have taken care of that," he said, finality in his voice.

Natasha shook her head.

"But they were no where near me," she tried to keep a steady voice and not sound like she was begging him to believe her. "If you hadn't been there..."

Clint cut her off again.

"I know what you're trying to do Natasha," he began to raise his voice again. "It's pointless. I don't have what the rest of you have."

Natasha opened her mouth, then shut it again. She was at a loss to the point he was making.

Clint started pacing again and waving his arms as he spoke.

"Thor's a demi-god. Banner's a genius and the Hulk. Stark's a billionaire genius and he has his a Ironman suits. Cap, well, the guy can be on ice for 70 years and still come out strong. You have your enhancers."

He turned to face her and spat out, "I have nothing. I'm just an ordinary man."

With that, he picked up his coat and slammed out the back door of their cabin.

Natasha sighed and sat in one of the chairs next to the table. If she was the type of woman to cry when in desperation, the tears would have been pouring. She tried to come up with a solution, a way to make Clint see he was both wanted and needed on the team knowing that, short of plastic surgery, there was no way either of them could go back easily into their former jobs at SHIELD.

The fact that Clint had given voice to his insecurities was a sign to Natasha that this was very serious. He'd never said a thing to her before, and probably not to Coulson either. It was just something they noticed. She had watched him after every failed, or less than perfect, assignment, come back and think. She could almost see a thought process on his face at times. He'd think through every aspect of the assignment, trying to pinpoint where things went wrong. Then he'd work on a way to make things better, make himself better, reliving and rehashing the old until he knew that in the future the same mistake wouldn't happen. He bested himself time and again without a word of complaint.

Natasha tried to calm herself so she could think, especially so she could see things from Clint's point of view. And, at first blush, it was all rather hopeless. Starting at the beginning he'd been at a disadvantage he not only couldn't have foreseen, not even Natasha could come up with a way around in the future. Sure the tesseract was locked up on another planet, but all bets were now off as to if they'd ever encounter something like this again. How could any of them defend themselves against a weapon like that? Only Stark had been able to and that's just because of the arc reactor in his chest. She could argue that direction with Clint but it would never be enough. He had to find a way to beat it next time or, well, Natasha wasn't entirely sure what would happen. She did know Clint had never encountered something this powerful. None of them had.

As for the powers of the rest of the team, those would be easy to argue. Clint was a genius in his own right. He could build anything he set his mind to, sometimes out of nothing but scraps lying around. Coulson had jokingly called Clint "MacGyver" and Natasha had been foolish enough to ask what he'd meant. It resulted in an all-weekend MacGyver marathon while the three of them watched all seven seasons of the show which, for some reason, Coulson had on DVD.

Natasha could argue that she was not nearly as brilliant as he, and it would be true. She was more a specialist in manipulation. She also lacked his patience, as evidenced by the New Mexico assignment itself. She was a woman of action, preferably immediate action, and would have been bored to tears or possibly driven insane spending an entire year doing nothing but watching a glowing cube. But Clint knew how to shut down his need to move when he was on a job like that. She had personally watched him in sniper mode once for nearly 18 hours. If she hadn't been injured and weakened during that stint she would never have been able to do it.

While Stark and Banner were also geniuses, their areas of expertise were something completely different from Clint's. And neither of them could combat anything on their own. Banner without the Hulk never could have helped them in New York. Stark without his suits, well, he required a body guard. From what Natasha had seen during her time undercover at Stark Industries, she thought the man might have trouble taking Pepper down.

Battling together with Steve, Natasha noticed that while Steve had strength and speed, his agility wasn't quite at the same level as Clint. She doubted Cap could have the confidence to fight someone while standing at the very edge of a ravine as she'd Clint do in the past. Maybe she'd have to go to some lengths to find some way he could match Thor, but, the guy was a demi-god after all.

Natasha was certain that at the heart of his argument against joining the Avengers was the incident with Loki. Clint had yet to come up with a defense and until he did, he was going to struggle.

Sighing, Natasha stood slowly and made her way to the bedroom. They'd rented a small vacation cabin filled with just the barest necessities. The kitchen was small, with barely enough room for the two of them to maneuver while preparing meals. The living room doubled as a dining room. A short hallway had only three doors, one to the bath, another for a linen closet that was just deep enough to hold some towels and bedding. And the last door was to the one bedroom. The two twin beds inside attested to the nature of their relationship. She shook her head as if the action could shake out her feelings about that. Clint needed her to be focused on the reality of their situation, not lost in some foolish little girl fantasy about love and a future.

And, dammit, when had she gone and done that anyway? She was supposed to be calculating and professional. Her feelings for her partner should have been, at the most, friendly. When had she crossed the line? She didn't have an answer for that, but she did know that his "possession" by Loki had brought all her feelings to the forefront, demanding to be dealt with. But with the look Clint had given her the other night in the motel, Natasha was sure he didn't feel the same. She knew he still carried a good deal of guilt over his wife's death. And that he still carried their wedding picture in his wallet. He didn't talk about it much, but that was because it hurt too much. He probably still loved her and, while Natasha had zero experience in love, she was pretty sure that fighting a memory was probably something that couldn't be done.

Laying down on the bed she had claimed for their stay, Natasha glanced at her watch to try to gauge how much time she should give Clint before she went to look for him. He hadn't taken his bow & quiver, they'd been in the bedroom closet when he left. By that she knew he didn't intend to be gone long. But she knew he had a knife or two on him so he might feel safe staying out all night. Not that Clint needed a knife for safety. She knew that he could defend himself with his bare hands as well as she could.

She decided she'd give him 30 more minutes before checking to see if he even wanted to be found. It wouldn't take her long after going out the back door to determine if he'd covered his tracks or if he'd left a trail. Something gripped her inside at the thought that she might have to hunt for him. She'd never seen him this upset about anything. He'd lost friends during her time at SHIELD. She'd watched him grieve. But the loss of Phil Coulson was something even she was struggling with. He had been an amazing man. He'd saved Clint from himself five years before she and Clint met in Paris where he'd been hunting her. She had never known the truly troubled Clint. Coulson, and possibly Clint's wife, Bobbi, had helped him through all that before he, in turn, helped the notorious Black Widow. She would be always indebted to both Clint and his handler. And now there was no way to pay the debt she owed Coulson.

Natasha sat up suddenly.

'No, there is one thing,' she realized, as she slipped off the bed and stepped over to the closet. Natasha opened the door and reached in to pull out Clint's rather unique weaponry choice. She could repay Coulson by doing the one thing he'd want her to do more than anything. Save Clint from himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks for all the follows and favorites and reviews. It's all very encouraging. Again, any constructive criticism is welcome. Sorry that it is usually a week between updates. I have a slew of kids, and work, and life so I don't want to neglect all that...though I'd rather be writing. :D**

Clint sat with his feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. One hundred feet below, the ocean gently lapped the rocks in the small bay. He would have preferred a strong surf so the sound could block out all his thoughts. He knew he had upset Natasha. His anger over his skill set, or lack thereof, slowly dissipated and a feeling of guilt was increasingly replacing it. He never should have lashed out at her. She was trying to help him. In spite of everything he had done to her during his time under Loki's control, she was here, with him. She didn't have to come along with him. He'd told her he understood if she needed time away from him. She'd responded that she'd had enough time away from him in the last two years to last her a lifetime.

He'd raised an eyebrow and asked, "Is that supposed to make sense?"

She'd smiled at him and laughed.

"No, not really," she said. "I just want to be with you."

She'd known what that would mean to him. He'd said the same thing to her several years earlier when an op had gone terribly bad and she'd ended up accidentally killing an innocent bystander. She had told him that she understood if he couldn't stand to work with her again.

Maybe he should have put it a different way. Maybe she had taken it to mean more than what he meant, because after that she let him touch her. He had hesitantly placed his hand on her shoulder and she had stepped closer to him as he put his arms around her. It had felt good to finally hold her, to finally have broken through her defenses, to be trusted implicitly by her. Natasha didn't give trust to anyone, but she had given it to him.

Clint sighed and closed his eyes. The breeze washed over him, still with a chill of Spring, but warming now that they were headed into Summer. He wondered if he'd feel better once the weather warmed. Maybe they should have headed south instead. Soon the heat would be stifling there, and the humidity would weigh like a heavy mail vest. Natasha hated that weather though. She preferred the north, with its cooler weather and it's long summer days. It reminded her more of home. He supposed that, no matter what had happened to her in Russia, there was always a sense in which it would be a home to her. Just as it didn't matter to her what he'd done, she would always consider him her friend.

A noise in the distance stopped him mid-thought. He listened only briefly before a small smile came to his lips. He didn't need to look to know it was her footsteps. He had them memorized in every possible situation, whether here in a wooded setting, or on the SHIELD helicarrier, he would know her. Even under Loki's spell he'd known. It's how he'd realized she was right behind him on the catwalk and then turned to fight her.

Before he had a chance to allow that thought to drag him further into is despondency, he heard a sound that was familiar, but that he didn't associate with Widow. It was the slight dragging sound an arrow made when it was pulled from his specially specially designed quiver. He heard her nock the arrow into his bow and pull back. Clint's curiosity was staring to get the best of him and he held his breath, wondering what she was planning. Suddenly, he heard the release. He didn't need to turn to look in order to guess where it was headed. Before it made impact, he knew it would hit the tree that stood a foot behind him and that it would land level with the back of his head.

After the impact he said, "Did you miss?"

"Depends," came her reply. "What did you think I was aiming at?"

She walked over and pulled the arrow out of the tree. After replacing it in the quiver, she lay the quiver and the bow next to the tree.

"This seat taken?" Natasha asked, motioning at the cliff side next to him.

Clint shook his head and Natasha sat down.

They sat, shoulders touching, in silence for a long time, staring out across the bay. Finally Clint turned and looked at her. Natasha was looking out across the water. She looked like she was here on business, her face serious and her eyes calculating. He wondered if she already knew what she'd say or if she was winging it. Clint sighed and was beginning to feel a bit selfish for putting her in such a difficult position. She'd been through hell too. She'd had to worry about him. Her concern for him over-riding her fear of The Hulk. Clint knew Natasha needed to feel like she in control in every situation but The Hulk had always been viewed as an unknown variable. Then, only a few days after that, Clint had intentionally unleashed her greatest, maybe her only, fear on her.

As much as he was trying to control his outward reaction to his inward thoughts, Clint must have let it show because Natasha reached over and took his hand in hers. He relaxed slightly at her touch. He didn't want to think about how he suspected it meant more to her than he could let it mean to him.

"Your shot's improving," he said, looking at their entwined hands.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her turn and look up at him.

"Thanks," she said, simply. Then turned and looked back out across the bay.

He'd thought she'd say more. Maybe about how she'd rarely touched a bow before she met him and how practice made perfect, all in an attempt to tie her act to how he would be great for The Avengers. But she was silent. He wasn't sure what she was getting at by shooting the arrow...maybe she wanted to force him to draw his own conclusions. That would certainly be like her.

They sat another half-hour before Clint finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," he told her, and looked at her as she turned and gave him a questioning look.

"I shouldn't have taken all my anger out on you back there," he explained.

She smiled and replied, "I don't think it was all your anger. After all, neither of us required medical attention."

He laughed with her.

He was still staring into her eyes when he said, "I remember the first time I heard you laugh."

Her features softened as she remembered as well. Clint loved it when he could make her look like that. He recalled her face early after they met was always set in a scowl. Drawing out other looks in a natural setting, not undercover, had been a personal mission of his. She'd been so young when he'd found her and brought her in. Younger than he had been when Coulson had done the same for him. It bothered him to realize she'd never had a real childhood at all. Even for all the difficulties Clint had faced, he still had bright spots in his life. She was only 16 and she should have been getting her driver's liscense and worrying about whether she was going to get asked to prom. Instead she had a kill list longer than his, including his professional career, and ledger so red she was certain she'd never wipe it clean.

It had been her 18th birthday and, while Clint had been able to get her to smile over the previous year and a half, what he wanted was a real laugh from her. He didn't expect her to laugh long, but something more than a snort and a roll of the eyes would be a huge boost to his ego.

Phil had argued with him from the beginning that it would never work, that his plan was too contrived, that Widow would see right through it. Normally, Clint listened to his handler's advice. The man could read people like no one else could and Clint usually deferred to the man's judgment. But Clint had been in the circus. He knew how to make a pratfall look real. He knew how to draw a reaction out of a crowd, even if he was a bit out of practice now. He would get her to laugh. He was sure of it.

Everything had gone according to plan. Natasha arrived for lunch at the mess hall at her normal time. He was in line waiting with his tray. He ordered as much of the messiest food he could then he turned to make sure Natasha was watching him. When she looked up he pretended to trip and proceeded to knock the contents of his tray all over the female agent behind him. Then he pretended to slip and to shove her tray against the others in the tray line, thereby knocking everyone's food all over anyone who was in the line. Then he pretended to fall, summarily knocking down the female agent and succeeding in taking down a few behind her as well. It had been a beautiful catastrophe. Clint was fairly proud of himself. He could hear the roars of laughter from the other diners around the mess and snuck a peek at his partner as he offered false apologies to the agent he'd used to fulfill his plan. Natasha just gave him a blank look. It was if she'd known he had done it all on purpose.

Damn, Phil was right again.

As he got up and offered a hand that was refused to the female agent whose name started with 'Mek,' he couldn't see her full name because her badge, and a great deal of her uniform, was covered with his mashed potatoes and gravy, he noticed the room had become eerily silent. He followed the gaze of one of the food line workers to the back corner of the mess.

Oh, man, when had Fury started slumming it with the rest of them? Didn't he have his own dining room?

Clint swallowed hard and masked his face to appear as innocent and surprised as he should have been if this had been an actual accident, which was very difficult as he watched the Director slowly made his way toward the archer. Clint's heart was beating a mile a minute. He didn't really see any way this was going to turn out in his favor.

Fury finally stopped right in front of Hawk, his tall figure looming over him and making him feel like he was about 10 years old. He had not been forced to remember just how tall his superior was for quite a number of years.

"Barton," Fury said in a voice that might sound calm to anyone who didn't know him. "I don't suppose you know where the cleaning closet is."

Clint shook his head, "No, sir."

"Well, why don't you have one of the mess workers show you, and, instead of eating, you can spend the next hour cleaning this mess you've made."

Clint was inwardly relieved. That wasn't that bad a punishment. But he should have known Fury wasn't done with him yet.

"After that," the Director went on. "You can spit shine the shoes of all these people behind you in the line."

Clint looked back at the mess he'd worked so hard to create. There must have been 20 people there. This time he sighed audibly.

"What was that, Agent Barton?" Fury barked.

"Yes, sir," Clint said.

"When you finish that, whatever hour that may be, you come to my office," Fury finished before turning on his heel and marching out the door.

Great, Clint thought. There was more punishment to come.

He looked over to the cashier who was summoning him and pointing to a mop and bucket and huge pile of towels someone had brought out for him. His shoulders sagged. This was going to take hours. It was certainly not the way he'd planned Natasha's birthday. He looked over at her expecting to see her frowning and shaking her head at him. She had moved to a table and was sitting on a chair. Her elbows rested on the table and her head was in her hands. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably and Clint wondered if he hadn't made her cry instead. Then she looked up. Her face was pink and she had the biggest smile he'd ever seen on it. She was laughing so hard Clint thought she might cry. She glanced at him and fell into greater hysterics. All the tension of that past few moments drained from him and he felt the corners of his mouth turn up in a grin. If he'd had to clean the shoes of ever man and woman on the base that day, it would have been worth it to see this.

Later, very much later, Clint walked the quiet and evening lit halls to Fury's office to find out the rest of his punishment. Taking a side hall he decided he went to see if Coulson was still in his office. Work-a-holic that he was, as if Clint wasn't himself, Phil was at his desk, peering at something on his computer. He looked up when Clint cleared his throat.

"You set me up," Clint accused, but not harshly.

A smile came over his handler's face.

"Of course," he replied.

"Thanks," Clint told him.

Coulson looked confused. He certainly didn't seem to expect Clint's reaction. But then he realized what Hawkeye was really saying.

"You're welcome," Phil said. "But, in the future, why don't you try sitcoms if you want her to laugh. I could recommend a few, you know."

Clint shook his head and turned to leave. As he walked down the hall, he hollered behind him, "Don't think this lets you off the hook. I'm still going to get you back, bastard."

Phil's laughter followed him.

In Fury's office, Clint was directed to sit in a chair opposite his boss. This surprised Clint. Normally a reprimand didn't warrant the comfort of a seat. As Hawkeye sat the normally broody man stared Barton down with his one eye.

"Did you get what you wanted?" Fury asked.

"What?" Clint asked, his turn to be confused.

"That whole show in the mess," Fury said. "I doubt you did that just because you had nothing better to do all day than clean the cafeteria and practice your spit shine skills.'

Clint wasn't sure what to say. How much had Coulson told their superior?

Fury opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a disk. Reaching to Clint, he handed it to the archer.

"Off the record," Fury smiled, and that really surprised Clint. "I think it was a nice plan. But in the future, leave the humor to Agent Coulson. He's better at it than you."

Fury dismissed Clint who walked back to his room shaking his head. This certainly wasn't the way he'd planned the day to go. Arriving at his quarters, he found Natasha waiting for him sitting cross-legged on his bed. The present he'd left on his nightstand was in her hands and a playful grin on her face. He smiled back and quickly, without bringing attention to it, slipped the disc Fury had given him into the top drawer of his dresser before walking over to her. He sat across from her and waited for her to open her gift, a hair pin with a shaft so she could pull the inner part out and poison the tip. It had taken him almost all year to come up with that. It was hard to buy a gift for an assassin as practical as Natasha.

After she'd gone back to her room, Clint took the disc out and put it into his laptop. It turned out to be the video feed from the mess hall. He could see Natasha clearly in it and enjoyed being able to watch her through the whole thing. He could honestly say that he'd never been happier to mess up so big.

Clint shook himself from the happy memory and lifted his arm around Natasha's shoulder. She leaned into him and reached over to take his other hand in hers.

"If you don't want to join The Avengers," she said. "I won't try to convince you."

Clint was surprised, but not more than when she concluded. "And I will stay with you, whatever your decision."

For a moment he didn't know what to say. He knew this was not some sort of manipulation. He'd seen her manipulate before. She was sincere and Clint was shaken.

"Why?" he managed to choke out.

When she looked up at him, her face told him that she thought the answer should be obvious.

"You've never left me," she said softly. In her eyes he saw conviction and he knew there was no argument to be made.

Clint released her hand and reached his other arm around her to hold her to him. He placed a kiss on the top of her head. He couldn't find the words to thank her, couldn't find a way to say he understood what she was saying, that their friendship meant as much to her as to him. That it was more important to her than her independence and that he had come to mean something to her more than her job, almost more than clearing her ledger. He felt her arms go around his chest and back and he relaxed into her embrace. He had no idea how he would deal with the possibility of facing something like Loki again. He had no idea how to protect himself, or her, from anything that big in the future. But it almost didn't seem to matter now. All the comforting words she'd spoken since he'd come back to her from Loki's control finally sank deep into his soul. If they had made it through this, they could make it through anything else in the future.

Finally they released each other so they could go back to the cabin and eat. It had been before lunchtime when Clint had left earlier, and now it was nearly time for dinner. Clint put his quiver on his back and retracted his bow. Holding out his hand to her, he led her back down the slope toward their rental. They had only held hands like this, and for this long, when they had played a couple for a cover. It was a nice feeling, Clint thought, having her hand in his, walking silently through the woods. A strange peace had come over him, a feeling he had never even had before the whole incident with Loki. Right now he didn't want to think what it might mean, he just wanted to enjoy it, to enjoy her, and their time alone together.

After dinner they'd walked along the beach, her hand in his as if it had always been there. But when they went to bed that night, Clint was very glad he'd found a place with twin beds. The way he was feeling right now, it would have been too great a temptation to slip into bed with her. He didn't think he'd try anything, but he wasn't sure. He had never felt so close to anyone before, not even his wife. It should have unnerved him, but it only left him with an immense feeling of contentment.

Hawkeye was fairly certain he'd have slept the whole night through if a sudden but terribly quiet noise inside the house hadn't startled him awake. He lay in the bed a moment and could tell by Natasha's breathing that she had also heard it and was awake. His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and they both eased out of their beds, the guns they kept under their pillows now held at the ready in their hands. Natasha was the closest to the door and led the way out into the hall. She checked the bathroom under the cover of the darkness while Clint stood at the ready outside the door. Coming out she shook her head. It was clear.

Clint then turned toward the living room. Light from the moon streamed in through the lace curtain covered windows. Both he and Widow were still as they listened for any movement or breathing in the small house. There was nothing. Finally Clint walked into the kitchen and flipped up the light switch. The rooms were drenched in the glare. Still at the ready, they looked around but could not only not find anyone, they at first couldn't see anything out of place. The dishes they'd washed after dinner were in the dishdrain, the doors were both locked and bolted shut. Natasha went to check the living room windows while Clint checked the one over the kitchen sink.

He turned quickly as he heard her sudden intake of breath from the other room. Looking at her he saw a worried look on her face. He followed her gaze to the table by the window. On it was a book that hadn't been there when they'd gone to bed, in fact, hadn't been in the cabin anywhere at all as he didn't recognize the color. Natasha reached out with a shaking hand, which surprised Clint, until she lifted the book to show him the cover, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

**A/N: Mockingbird was Clint's wife's codename in the comic book series.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Well, I wanted to e keep the Bobbi story as close to the original as I could remember but then as I started writing I realized I couldn't remember as much as I thought I did. Also there was the whole issue with the weirder elements of the story. If Loki & the aliens in The Avengers are things they were never trained for, then they'd probably never dealt with time travel and all the other crazy things. So I just went with the basics that I remembered and some stuff I read as I researched. I hope it came out OK. Also, this is probably the longest chapter I've ever written. I just couldn't find a good stopping point. Sorry for the length. **

After he recovered from the initial shock, Hawkeye had quickly concluded that the intruder must have come in through the attic. Due to the age of the house, there were large wood grates for ventilation at each end of the attic. When Clint had gone up, his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the slats broken out of the side that faced away from the beach. Natasha could see that only served to increase his guilt over his earlier burst of anger that led to them being out of the house all afternoon.

"Clint," Natasha tried to reassure him. "We weren't planning on staying in the cabin all day anyway. We would have gone out for a few hours at some point."

He shook his head at her.

"I should have been more diligent," he said. "I should have checked the perimeter when we came back."

She just gave him a look and rolled her eyes.

"Same could be said of me," she reminded.

And it could have. Natasha had been incredibly distracted by the time they'd come back for dinner. Clint holding her hand the whole time had wreaked havoc on her senses. She was glad for the briskness of their pace as they walked down the hillside, through the woods behind the cabin. It gave her an excuse for her breathlessness and her flushed cheeks. Their after dinner walk along the beach had done no better. All she'd been able to think was how nice it was to finally have Clint feel as close to her as she did to him. And when he'd put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close as they walked back toward the house, all rational thoughts had somehow scattered. If she had to be honest, the events in New York, and the days prior to the battle, had shaken her so intensely, it was a wonder she was still functioning. Somewhere in the back of her mind she must have told herself that they were on vacation and that they didn't need to be as attentive as they usually were to their surroundings. It was a stupid mistake. One she'd be sure never to make again.

But if the intruder hadn't brought Natasha squarely back to earth, the next words out of Clint's mouth would have.  
"I should call Phi..." Clint's voice strangled on his words and Natasha looked sharply at him. His face had paled and she saw that his hands had started to tremble.

She walked to him quickly and put her hand on his shoulder. He tried to pull away from her but she used her other hand to grab his arm and hold him in place. He avoided her eyes but to Natasha he looked the same as he had when he'd first learned about Clint's death.

_The six of them had walked out of the shawarma place noiselessly on the heels of their silent meal. Their minds seemed so numb that the destruction on the street barely registered. Tony broke the silence._

_"I guess I should go back to the tower and see if Pepper is there," he said. His voice completely void of its usual boyish playfulness._

_Everyone looked at him as if they were trying to register his words and then formulate a reply._

_"Hey," he said. "Why don't you all come with me and stay?"_

_"Is that even going to be safe?" Natasha asked the obvious question._

_"Well, if it's not I'll put us up in a hotel," Tony's face started to show signs of emotion again as he settled into a plan of action._

_The five others looked at each other and shrugged a "why not" shrug and turned to follow the billionaire through the rubble littered streets, passing emergency workers and clean up teams as they went._

_They had just turned the corner and could see Stark's building, or what was left of it, when Clint stopped mid-stride. _

_He touched Natasha's arm and said, "If we're going to stay with Stark, we should call Coulson and let him know where we are."_

_Oh, god._

_Everyone froze and five pairs of eyes slowly turned to look at the archer._

_Natasha, who normally had her emotions completely under control choked down a sob as unshed tears formed behind her eyes._

_Before anyone could tell him, Hawkeye figured it out._

_"No," he said quietly. His face contorting in a cross between agony and rage._

_He looked at each of them, as if in one of the pairs of eyes he might find a different truth. Finding none, he turned to Steve._

_"When?" he asked. "How?"_

_Natasha knew immediately why he chose Steve. As little as Clint knew of all the Avengers, he had figured out rather quickly that Steve was the least likely to sugar-coat the facts. And he'd heard enough stories from Phil over the years about Captain America to know he was as honest as the day._

_Steve looked nervously at the rest of them before his eyes landed on Natasha. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Taking a deep breath, Steve proceeded to give the archer the details, though Natasha was glad he left out any mention of Clint's acts during the attack. He wasn't cruel in his delivery of the facts, but Natasha could see that it was torturing Clint none-the-less. Finally she commanded Phil's hero to stop. Barton had a good enough picture to draw the conclusion in his mind that he was to blame for his oldest friend's death._

_"I can't," he started to say something, but then stopped. The emotions he was struggling to hide threatened to break through when he opened his mouth. Instead he shook his head, turned, and began to limp away._

_It was Bruce who went after him, walking slowly behind him and only moving to cut him off when the two of them were out of earshot of the others. The doctor talked with Clint for a few moments. Natasha knew that Clint was nearly as knowledgeable about Banner as she. He would know the destruction Banner handed out to both friend and foe when he was Hulked-out, and so she said a silent prayer to the God her parents had tried to teach her about before they were killed that the doctor's words would convince her partner._

_She breathed a sigh of relief when Clint turned around and began to walk back with Bruce. Barton didn't look happy about joining them, and he was sullen and quiet the rest of the night, but he remained with the team at the tower._

_She had stayed with him that night. Tony had raised an eyebrow but the Widow shot him a look that implied he was on the verge of winding up in pieces and he said nothing. Laying in the bed in Stark Tower, Clint clung to her and shed silent tears as his body shook. It was then that Natasha had vowed to herself to never leave him again, barring circumstances beyond her control._

And now her partner looked on the brink of breaking down again. Only this time there was the reminder of his wife added to his burden. He'd never told Natasha the details and she'd never pried. Whenever someone at SHIELD seemed to have a desire to share them with her, for whatever possible reason, she would shoot daggers at the person with her eyes and walk away. If Clint didn't want to tell her, it was nothing she needed to know. But now she wondered if that had been wise. If she knew the details already, Hawkeye wouldn't have to relive the pain now. Because now she needed to know. She had to have the facts so they could figure out what this was all about. Was this some sick joke? Or was this a serious threat? Either way, she knew it would be just one more torture for her already troubled partner.

There was a way to avoid his involvement in telling her the whole story, though.

"I'll call Fury," she told Clint.

She could get the facts from the Director and Barton could just fill in the blanks.

He looked at her now and his eyes cut a hole in her heart. He looked so lost. She'd never seen him look like this and for a moment she was terrified she'd lose him to some sort of mental breakdown. He opened his mouth to speak but he just started shaking. Natasha directed him to the couch in the corner of the small living room and guided him to sit down. Clint put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Natasha hesitated for a moment, suddenly unsure where she stood regarding his feelings. She'd felt as though she'd broken through some wall earlier, that she and Clint had come to a place where he could feel the same feelings for her that she had kept hidden from him for so long.

She watched as Hawkeye leaned back into the couch and ran his hands over his short hair. Natasha could see his face in the light of the moon that streamed brought the living room window. He looked up at her then cocked his head to his left and furrowed his brow. He offered her a sad smile then reached out his hand to her. She took it and he pulled her down onto the couch and into his arms. Natasha felt herself relax the tension that had been building up since she'd been awoken barely an hour earlier.

The minutes passed into an hour as they sat and listened for any further movement outside their cabin. When both felt comfortable enough, Clint broke the silence.

"It's my fault she died," he said softly.

It was all Natasha could do not to respond in any way. Instead she sat, head on Clint's shoulder, and listened to his story.

"I was such a royal jerk when I was younger," he confessed. "I loved Bobbi because she seemed to see past that and see the man I was supposed to be.

"At least that's what Coulson told me," he half-laughed. "I just thought she was hot."

He paused for a moment, maybe to collect his thoughts, or maybe to measure his words. Natasha felt the tension start to fill her shoulders again. He must have noticed it too because he reached up with his free hand and began to run his fingers through her hair. Natasha swallowed hard and suppressed a shiver brought about by the intimacy of his action. He placed a kiss on the top of her head and she knew he was trying to reassure her that nothing between them had changed. That whatever he had felt earlier in the evening was still there.

"I was mad for her in the way only a young man can be for a woman," Natasha could hear a smile in his voice and she relaxed some more as he went on with his story.

"I had to have her, but she was so much more," he paused "She wanted more from me than what I wanted from her. She wanted everything, my heart, my soul, my love, and I wanted some brief fling.

"What a damned waste of time," he said bitterly, and she felt him shake his head in remorse.

"It took a while for me to come around," he admitted.

Clint paused his story again and this time he stayed silent for a long time, but he didn't stop his ministrations to her hair. Natasha relaxed still more. She was, honestly, more used to silent Clint. She wondered, not for the first time, just how different her Clint was from the old Clint. He'd called himself a 'royal jerk.' She wondered if Coulson would have rolled his eyes and exclaimed in his usual subdued manor, "Understatement of the century, bird brain."

She sighed again at the thought of their handler. Clint seemed to notice the shift in her mood and he moved his hand to her face. Pulling away from her slightly, he tilted her face toward his. His keen eyes able to see even though her face was away from the window and in darkness, he searched her face, though for what she wasn't entirely sure. She offered him a slight smile and saw something shift slightly in his moonlit eyes.

"Are you OK with this?" he asked gently.

"With which?" Natasha wasn't sure if he was asking about his story or their intimate proximity.

"Hearing about Bobbi," he confirmed.

Natasha nodded.

"I think I need to know now," she told him, and she found herself fighting the urge to raise her hand to his face and offer him a comforting touch.

"I never wanted to talk about it," he told her, as if she thought she needed an explanation, and this time she didn't fight the urge to touch him.

He smiled down at her with another look she hadn't seen before, then he leaned into her hand as it cradled his cheek.

He pulled her back to him as he whispered, "I'm so glad you're here. I don't think I could make it through this without you."

Taking a deep breath, he plunged on.

"When I finally grew up enough to deserve her, it was the best thing that had ever happened to me," he told her, and Natasha could hear the happiness in his voice. "I had never thought I could have anything like it.

"We were married a year later" he told her.

"I remember some of the guys at SHIELD telling me how I was messing up my life by marrying so young," Natasha felt him swallow hard as his throat constricted with emotion.

"I'm glad I didn't listen to them," he seemed to force out. "I had already wasted two years since I'd met her."

He started to drift off and Natasha could sense him slowly sinking back into despair and felt she needed to intervene. Facing Coulson's death and reliving Bobbi's death were probably more than he could handle right now. She didn't know what happened to Bobbi, but Clint believed it was his fault.

"Everything's easier with hindsight," she told him. "I think we could all say we'd have done things differently in hindsight."

He pulled back to look at her again.

"I wouldn't have changed my decision when it came to saving you," he said, the certainty in his voice sounding more familiar than the pain and fear she'd been listening to during this midnight conversation

"Thank you," she smiled.

"It's one of the few right things I've done in my life," he confessed.

She leaned back into his embrace to encourage him to continue.

"You'd think I would have learned by then to value what I had," he said. Natasha could tell he was disgusted with himself by the tone of his voice. "I threw everything away because I was a selfish bastard."

Natasha braced herself mentally for whatever her partner had to say. She knew it certainly couldn't be worse than anything she herself had ever done. But it might be something she would be surprised he would do.

"We'd been married for two years. Bobbi was working in LA when she came across this vigilante group headed by a guy named Lincoln Slade. Called himself Phantom Rider. They were after the same target and she thought that, instead of tripping over each other, they could help each other out.

"I didn't like it at all. Coulson wasn't too thrilled either. But Bobbi was one of the best and we tried to trust her instincts," Clint took a deep breath as if he had to force himself to continue.

"This Slade fell in love with her," Clint stopped again as he choked the words out.

Natasha slipped her arms around Clint in support. She was starting to understand why he never spoke about it. She listened as he took a few deep breaths to calm himself before he went on.

"Turned out he was a crazy son of a bitch. He kidnapped her. Drugged her. Made her believe she was his," Clint stopped again to take a deep, ragged breath before finishing. "Wife.

"I was going crazy, trying to find her. I came across one of his vigilante friends. He didn't realize what had happened. Slade had told him Bobbi had left me for him," Hawkeye had to stop again to get control of his emotions. "He helped me and Coulson locate her and Slade. I guess she was starting to figure out what was going on already. The drugs weren't really having the same effect on her. Don't know why. I just know that when she saw me, she remembered who she really was. Who we were."

Clint stopped here and pulled away from Natasha. He stood and started to pace the room. Finally he stopped at the wall separating the living room and the kitchen. Leaning his forehead against it he started again.

"She was devastated. Essentially what he'd done to her constituted as rape. He forced her in a drugged state to," Clint shook his head and refused to finish his thought.

"I was so stupid," his voice took on an edge he usually reserved for field interrogations. "I thought everything would be fine. Phil kept trying to get me to open my eyes. See how much she was really suffering. But I figured that she had me and didn't need anything else."

"I should have killed the bastard!" Clint slammed his fist against the wall and the little house shook. "But I was so full of my own self worth, my own career, really. I wouldn't.

"I came home from an assignment to find a note telling me she couldn't take her memories anymore and she was going to do something about it," Clint pushed himself off the wall and began to pace again.

"I knew instinctively what she was going to do. And I knew that it was something I should have done myself. She had a two day head start on me," Natasha watched as he walked back and forth in front of her. His fists clinched and his face contorted with pain.

"Somehow she'd sprung the scum from his SHIELD cell and had followed him several days until she had him isolated. She confronted him. They fought. I was right on her heels. But I was too late. I watched her let him fall off a cliff to his death."

Clint suddenly stood stock still in the middle of the room. Natasha held her breath. She could feel the intense emotions rolling off him from across the room. Whatever had happened next still affected Clint as if it had happened yesterday.

"I went to her," Natasha could hear the pain in his voice as he choked out the rest through fresh tears. "I said so many terrible things to her. I was angry because she'd let him die. She'd led him to his death instead of allowing him to face justice.

"I," Clint walked to the table and collapsed in the wood chair. "Oh, god. I told her we were through. That I couldn't be married to someone who would do something like that."

His next words were barely a whisper before he broke down completely, "I walked away from her. I left her there."

While Natasha had thought she'd been prepared for whatever Barton had to tell her, she wasn't sure she could handle this. What the Black Widow had done in her career with the Red Room made what Mockingbird did seem like nothing. She could see that the old Clint really was a radically different person. And it shocked her. She felt her mind going down a rabbit trail where Clint could no longer consider her a partner let alone his friend, or possibly more, but she quickly shook herself out of it. He had been nothing but helpful to her since he'd saved her. He had been the one to get her through the mess of her past, to help her see...she glanced sharply at the distraught archer at the table...he had seen the woman she was supposed to be.

Natasha swallowed down her fear as she stood and walked slowly to her friend. She'd always wondered what had made him the man she most admired. Now she knew, at least in part. She had to know the rest, but he wouldn't volunteer that information if she shut him out now.

Kneeling in front of him, she placed a hand on his arm and whispered to him, "Clint."

He shook his head. He didn't want to go on with the story, it was obvious.

"Clint," Natasha said quietly again, but now she found herself tongue tied. No words of assurance could be found. What could she say? That it was a long time ago? That none of that mattered now? Because it was obvious that it did to him.

Finally, Natasha rested her head on Clint's knee. Somehow it didn't matter if he continued his story or not. Natasha wondered now if she really needed to hear the rest. She didn't want him to suffer any more. She couldn't stand to hear the pain in his voice, see it etched on his face. They had both been through so much over the past weeks and now she just wanted everything behind them. She was tired. She'd seen things, fought...aliens. She involuntarily shuddered.

Then Clint's hand was on her head, his fingers combing through her hair.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I never wanted to upset you.

"I just," he started, then stopped.

Shaking his head he finally said, "I don't understand why this is happening."

Internally Natasha resigned herself to hearing the rest of the story.

Outwardly she looked up at Clint. His face was in shadows now that the window was behind him. She couldn't see his him, but she'd seen enough pain on his face in the last few days to know what he must look like. She hated to add to that, but they needed to figure out what was going on.

"What happened to her?" Natasha asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice. What had Clint done that made him blame himself for his wife's death?

"I went back to SHIELD. Got a lawyer. Filed for divorce," his voice cracked again. "Coulson was beyond pissed at me. He actually dumped me. Told me he didn't want to be my handler anymore. Fury sent me to Europe for some shit assignments with some newbie desk jockey for a handler. I got the picture real quick what they thought of my decision. But I didn't care. I was so full of self-righteousness that I really couldn't see why I was angry.

"I wasn't enough for her," Clint explained. "I really thought so highly of myself that I couldn't imagine we should get help after the whole mess with Phantom Rider. I just wanted everything to go back to how it was before. I didn't want to admit how hurt she was.

"This went on for about a year. Me being a total ass. Her working in the States. After about six months I had called Coulson. I really couldn't stand only hearing bits and pieces about Bobbi's life. I don't know exactly what I wanted to hear. That she couldn't function without me? Coz I sure wasn't doing a great job without her.

"Phil told me she was OK and that she was getting the help she needed to recover from her trauma. That set me off again. I just could not stand that she needed more, that I alone couldn't help her.

"It had been just about a year, and it was near my birthday, when she called me. Said she was in the country, I was in Germany then, and she'd like to see me and talk. I was dying without her, I knew it. I barely slept, hardly ate. I was so compromised that I knew SHIELD had to be seriously discussing removing me from the field.

"When I saw her, only my stubborn pride kept me from throwing myself down and begging her to forgive me. But she did anyway. She told me she wanted to make our marriage work. She'd never signed the divorce papers. She loved me. Even after I had...I was so lucky.

"But then she said she wanted us to go to marriage counseling. I played it cool then. Told her I'd have to think about it. She asked me to come back to New York at least. So I requested a return. And then I _thought_ about it," Clint sighed a deep and sad sigh, and Natasha knew he was coming to the end of his story.

"I did things like take her out, and buy her flowers, and remember important dates, but I couldn't bring myself to accept the whole counseling thing."

He paused again and Natasha could feel the shift in his mood. She reached over and took his hand in hers.

"We never really worked together after we had married," he continued. "But there was a major operation going down in the Midwest. Some fancy magician, called himself Mephisto, had been hired by a group of Chicago mobsters to pull some bank heists. Each one was getting more spectacular and SHIELD knew that large losses of life were looming on the horizon. It was the biggest operation I'd ever been a part of as far as number of people went.

"As always, I was supposed to be eyes up high. Bobbi was down in the fray. I wasn't nervous. Same old, same old for me. I could see her down below. She had this beautiful long blond hair," Clint stopped again and drew a steadying breath.

"I didn't know what went wrong but I knew when. The whole bank blew. I was a block down and I could feel the blast. I looked for Bobbi but I couldn't see her. Coulson was yelling in my ear to stay where I was. I told him to go to hell I was going to go find my wife. Then I pulled the comm out," he stopped again.

"That was my second mistake," he said softly.

He went on right away, but his voice was barely a whisper. Natasha wondered if he was fully cognizant of where he actually was, or if he was so lost in the past he could see it.

"If I'd kept my comm in I would have heard Coulson tell me she was OK. If I'd stayed at my post I wouldn't have ended up in the middle of a firefight. I wouldn't have seen Mephisto up close. I'd have had a better shot at him from where I'd been. Bobbi wouldn't have had to...die," Clint stopped briefly as he choked out the last word.

"I had gone after Mephisto. For a magician he was pretty handy with a gun I guess. He turned and fired at me. It all happened so fast I didn't have time to think or move. Bullets had never been an MO for him and I hadn't bothered to factor them in. And then I saw her. Bobbi. She was right next to me, pushing me down. Placing herself between me and Mephisto. I saw her body jerk when the bullets hit her. She'd had no Kevlar because she wasn't supposed to do anything more than monitor and report. And that's all she would have done if I hadn't been so stupid."

Natasha didn't want to know any more. She didn't want to hear how Mockingbird had bled out in Clint's arms. Didn't want to hear their last words together. Or if that was even how it had ended . She was shaken because this whole story showed a side of Clint she'd never known. A side she didn't want to know. She had to admit now that she'd thought he'd always been the man she'd met in an alley in Paris, who, with deep compassion in his eyes, offered her a chance at a better life.

She felt a tear roll down her cheek, then felt his thumb brush it away.

"Kind of disappointing, isn't it?"

Natasha opened her eyes to look at him, unsure what he was getting at.

"To know what I was like back then," he said, mitre than a hint of self-contempt in his voice.

"You loved her and you acted in an irrational manner trying to save her," Natasha replied. She thought of how different the Loki incident would have been if it had happened a few years earlier. Would she have been able to calmly wait while SHIELD looked for Clint? "People do things like that when they're young."

They stared at each other for a moments and it was then Natasha noticed how light it was getting. Dawn came early here this time of year. She looked at Clint again and could see how ravaged his face was, as if he had just physically relived the entire incident. Standing, she leaned over him, took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead softly. She was rewarded with feeling him relax, the tension slowly seeping from his body.

"What happened to Mephisto," she asked softly.

Clint sighed, "He was caught and arrested. There wasn't enough evidence to convict him of any murder but Bobbi's and since it was only manslaughter he got 40 years."

Natasha pulled back to look him in the eye. She was relieved that through the sadness in them they still achieved a non-verbal communication. They had a place to start, they agreed.

"I'll call Fury," Natasha said, pulling away from him. "Have him check to make sure the guy is still where he's supposed to be."

Clint got up from the chair as she turned away to go get her phone and he grabbed her hand gently. She turned and smiled at him.

"Thank you," he said. His eyes bore deeply into her soul as if he would convey everything he felt in that one look. And he did.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: As I previously mentioned, I've removed the super-natural elements of Clint's previous cases. The real Mephisto makes Loki seem like a puppy dog. I mean, the dude's an actual demon. Anyway, because Mephisto is his real name I'm using one of his "nick-names" as his real name. I actually never heard him called Nick Scratch, so blame Marvel wiki if I'm wrong. ;) **

**As always, constructive criticism greatly appreciated. **

Hawkeye and Black Widow kept to the edge of the forest that bordered the Nova Scotia coastline. Hawk had felt eyes on them since they'd left the little cabin as soon as it was light, for the coordinates they'd agreed upon with Commander Nick Fury for the extraction. When he'd looked at Widow to "voice" his feeling, she agreed with a reply look and a slight nod of her head.

They walked along in practiced silence, each listening and watching, though no untrained eye would have been able to tell they were doing more than taking a morning hike through the woods, as long as the same untrained eye didn't take into account the quiver on the back of the man and the bow slung over his shoulder.

They had notified Fury of the previous night's events at dawn. He told them SHIELD would check on their suspicions. When their Commander had told them he'd send an extraction team, Clint almost balked. There was a part of him that didn't want to see New York again so quickly. That same part didn't feel like boarding the helicarrier either. How could he face the rest of SHIELD so soon? But now he couldn't contemplate or give room to his fears. He couldn't let his pride get Natasha hurt, or worse. So they'd quickly packed up their scant belongings and headed up the coast on foot, leaving Clint's car behind. Fury promised he'd send a team to see if there was any danger, but Clint and Natasha didn't have the time to investigate it now.

They were just minutes from the seaside cliff where the jet would land to pick them up and Clint was beginning to get nervous. From the forest there would be about 50 feet of rock face to climb. It wasn't extremely steep, but he and Natasha would be exposed as they made their way to the jet. They had decided they would wait to climb until they had cover from the extraction team, but Clint wondered whom they would send. While he knew orders were orders, who at SHIELD would be brave enough to be stuck in a jet with him for the ride, let alone stick their neck out to cover him under fire from an unknown assailant?

"Clint," Natasha's voice broke into his thoughts as she moved in front of him and placed a hand on his chest to stop his movement.

Taking a deep breath he realized that he had been completely lost in his thoughts for several moments and unaware of his surroundings. If something had happened during that time...

Natasha shook her head at him.

"Clint," she said softly, taking a step closer to him. "Stop thinking like that."

He knew he couldn't feign ignorance with her. She knew him so well, better than anyone had ever known him, maybe even better than Coulson had. Clint smiled a guilty smile at her.

"Sorry," he said.

He was going to say something more but then she took another step closer to him and suddenly all his senses came alive again. He could hear the noises around him. His sharp ears tuned to scan their perimeter. He could hear the rustle of the leaves and branches, the waves down on the beach, animals scampering through the undergrowth, and he could hear her breath. He was almost certain he could hear her heart beating. She smiled up at him, as if she knew this, too. Finally, over all the noise he heard the steady but quiet engine noise.

"Quinjet," he said, turning in the direction it was coming from.

Natasha looked at her watch.

"Two minutes out," she told him, and he nodded in agreement.

"Where's our watcher," she asked.

Hawkeye scanned the forest, but shook his head.

"I'll have a look when we get up the cliff," he said quietly.

"Go up first, I'll follow after you" she said.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'll feel safer if you're watching," she said honestly.

They both turned as the jet came into view and made for the landing on the cliff above them. Then they waited for whomever would come out to cover them.

They didn't have to wait long, and Clint sighed a pained sigh when he saw the red, white, and blue shield that necessarily accompanied Captain America. Natasha gave Hawkeye a look that told him she thought he was being melodramatic. But Clint just shook his head. Steve coming to their "rescue" made their situation seem more serious than Barton had thought it was. What had Fury discovered?

In two leaps, Cap was beside them at the base of the cliff. He nodded to each of them. Skipping pleasantries, he got to business, which only confirmed Clint's worst fears.

"I'll use the shield to cover each of you as we go up the cliff," he told them.

He turned to Natasha, seeming to assume she'd be first, but she shook her head.

"I want Clint up so he can get a look around," she told him. "We're pretty sure someone's following us but we haven't been able to get a line of sight on them."

Captain America looked at Clint.

"Good plan," he said, nodding in agreement.

Clint smiled slightly. He knew Steve didn't do sarcasm so his words were always true. Something about Coulson's hero's acknowledgement of Hawkeye's skills made the situation slightly less stressful, he thought, as the two men scrambled to the top.

At the cliff's edge, Steve stood ready with his shield while Clint carefully scanned the forest below. Pulling his bow off his shoulder and an arrow from his quiver he told the Captain to go back for Widow as he nocked the arrow at the ready.

He looked at the archer for a moment.

"You'll be exposed if you stay here," he said, implying that Clint should get into the cover of the quinjet.

"I'll be fine," Clint said with a conviction that apparently convinced the man, because he nodded and descended the cliff again.

When Natasha reached the top she gave Clint a questioning look. He replied with his own look that told her he couldn't see a thing. They were both disappointed as they walked quickly to the jet, the Captain walking backwards behind them, prepared to act if anything should happen.

If Clint had been worried when he saw Captain America peer over the edge of the cliff, seeing Maria Hill in the pilot's set of the quinjet only served to intensify that feeling. Whatever Fury learned couldn't be good at all.

He and Natasha quietly acknowledged their superior, then they sat in seats on opposite sides of the aisle and strapped in. This move seemed to surprise Captain America and he hesitated before he chose a seat on the same side as Natasha, behind Maria.

As Hill got them into the air, Steve explained what Fury had found.

"This Mephisto guy," he said with a slight question in his voice as he looked at Clint. "He apparently escaped from prison five days ago."

Clint gave Natasha a resigned look, telling her it really was worse than he thought.

"But the weird thing is," Cap went on. "No one even knew. Everyone at the prison thought he was still in his cell."

Natasha raised an eyebrow in question to Clint, who looked stunned, but not surprised. He nodded slightly at her. Magic. He almost shuddered, and Clint was not one to shudder.

Steve looked between the two of them and then continued.

"Commander Fury seems to think they were all hypnotized?" This time it was a question.

Clint turned his eyes from Natasha to look at Steve.

"He's a magician," he said. "Apparently one of the best."

He didn't want to say more than that. If Cap wanted to know, he could look it up in a SHIELD database.

Clint turned back to Natasha to continue their silent conversation. He "telling" her just how dangerous their situation had become. She "responding" with a we'll manage, we always do. Him "asking" why now? And her with a slight shrug that said we'll figure that out as we go along. A slight smile that repeated we always do. Clint smiled back a bigger yes, we do.

Suddenly the Captain broke the silence.

"Um," he hesitated as both assassins slowly turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, but, did you two just have an entire conversation without speaking?"

Behind him Maria Hill laughed loudly and both agents chuckled along with her.

"Get used to it, Captain," she said, as she slightly turned toward them from the pilot's seat.

The American hero looked between Hawkeye and Black Widow and Clint was afraid the man was going to question them further. Finally, Steve just smiled slightly and shook his head before getting up and moving to the gunner's seat next to Agent Hill.

The only outward conversation the rest of the flight was between Steve and Maria, the latter apparently making an attempt to teach the former the rudiments of flying.

Fury was waiting for them when Hill landed the quinjet on the Tarmac of the SHIELD compound in New York. Clint took in his Commander as he walked toward the man. To most people, Fury always looked serious and tense. But if you took the time to observe the man, at least as much time as Hawkeye had devoted to it, you learned that there were different levels of seriousness and intensity. The man looked to Clint to be at a very high level of both right now.

Added to Clint's concerns was the fact that nearly every eye in the vicinity was on him. He knew they were waiting to see what he would do and not one of them hid their stares. It reminded him of when he'd walked across the helicarrier with Natasha and Steve before the battle in New York. Only then there was more chaos so less people had time to stare. And then, he hadn't known the extent of the damage he'd caused, the number of people he'd killed or caused to be killed.

Suddenly, he felt Natasha beside him. Her shoulder to his, lending him her support. He looked at her and she returned his gaze with the reminder that he'd done the same for her when he'd brought her into SHIELD all those years ago. And, while there was still tension, most of it quickly dissipated.

Fury turned without a word and the four of them followed after him. He walked them to his office where he closed the door and locked it, indicating with his hand that he wanted them to sit in some chairs around a small oval table to the side of the room. Then he went to his computer and ran a check for unauthorized cameras and listening devices. Once it was completed and the room was deemed safe, the Commander began the meeting.

He touched the screen on his phone and the scene of an empty jail cell appeared in front of the four agents seated at the table.

"This," Fury indicated the room floating in their vision, "is Nick Scratch's prison cell five days ago."

He pressed the screen again and brought up the front gate of the prison. A video showing a man with shoulder length greying black hair dressed in prison orange walking through the gate unhindered played before them.

Clint swallowed carefully and tried to get a reign on his emotions. It had been nearly 10 years since he'd seen the man who'd murdered his wife. Under the table, he felt Natasha's hand rest on his thigh and his erratic heart beat began to slow to a more regular pace.

"Obviously, we are dealing with, not just an expert magician, one who could trick an entire prison full of people into believing he was somewhere when he wasn't, but a man who has spent some time planning this," Fury explained.

Another scene came up. It was the same Canadian border crossing Clint and Natasha had used to enter the country six days earlier. How had he known? The hand on Clint's thigh applied more pressure to remind him its owner was still there with him.

"I believe Scratch used newspaper photos or pictures he found on the Internet of the two of you to trace your steps up the coastline to your location in northern Nova Scotia."

Clint felt Natasha tense almost imperceptibly next to him and he slowly brought his own hand under the table to lay it atop hers.

"He used hypnosis or some kind of magic to trick the border guards to not just let him into the country without any ID, but to completely forget the incident in its entirety," Fury concluded with the video, turning it off and looking at the four agents who were still staring at the now empty space.

Hill recovered first and picked up where Fury ended.

"There really aren't any more public or security cameras along the route we assume you took the rest of the way north," she stated. "We have run a check of all the areas between the border and your location where Mephisto, at least we are operating under the assumption it was him, made contact with you."

Fury resumed his narrative.

"We've sent agents up to Nova Scotia, but we don't expect to find anything," he shook his head in disgust, but Clint knew it wasn't directed toward the SHIELD agents. "Whatever method he's been using to block the memories of others, he probably employed on each person with which he's interacted.

"The only way we could be ahead of him now is if he is working on his own," Fury continued. "It would be impossible to be back in New York as quickly as we brought you back."

"Are we entirely sure he's not alone in this?" Steve asked.

Fury shook his head gravely.

"I honestly don't believe he is," Fury replied. "But right now I have nothing much to go on."

Natasha spoke, "Has he had any visitors? Any friends, or family?"

Fury shook his head again.

"The man hasn't had a visitor since SHIELD finished with his interrogations nine years ago," their Commander told her.

"And we're checking through those interrogations now?" she asked.

Fury nodded affirmatively.

"I am going through them myself."

Clint gave the man a hard look, which was met with a similar gaze.

"So you believe that whoever is helping him is SHIELD," Hawkeye said, mostly as a benefit for the others in the room. Fury's look had already answered his question.

He gave Clint a slight nod.

"I'm afraid so," he told Barton, his face softened minutely and Clint was sure he was the only one who noticed.

"Are we safe here, sir?" Natasha questioned.

Fury glanced over at Steve who replied.

"We don't think so," he told her. "We'd like you to stay in the Avengers tower."

Clint's head snapped up.

"No!" he said with more force than he'd intended, causing the Captain to wince slightly.

Fury broke in quickly. He could see Clint was going to lose control if he didn't.

"This is not open to debate, Agent Barton," he said authoritatively.

Clint openly glared at the man and Fury thought he might end up having to dole out disciplinary action against his top agent. But just as suddenly as he'd flared up, Clint calmed. Fury wasn't a fool. He knew Natasha had somehow communicated with Clint through their linked hands they foolishly thought the table hid from the others in the room. He'd been watching his two best agents grow closer over the years, it's why he had separated them. Widow knew that, but he was fairly certain she'd never told Hawkeye. He'd have heard about it by now. He'd certainly heard it from Coulson.

'Nothing going on between them, Coulson?' Fury smirked internally. 'My good eye there's nothing going on.'

Fury wasn't sure he'd ever seen two agents more compromised. They might not have crossed that romantic line so many agents before them had, but their involvement went far deeper. It was, he had to admit, what made them such a good team. But when he had watched the famously cold-hearted Black Widow practically wither away when Clint had been in a coma three years earlier, he knew he had to intervene.

"Listen," he said aloud. "If there is someone in SHIELD involved, the tower will be safer."

"Safer than SHIELD headquarters?" Clint scoffed.

Fury nodded.

"Only one man has ever hacked into Stark's security system."

"Well, one's all it takes," Clint retorted, not impressed at all.

But then he sensed a change in his partner's emotions and turned to see a sadness on her face. He glanced at Steve, who averted his eyes from Clint's. That was all the confirmation he needed.

"Coulson," he said softly. His desire to maintain his dignity in front of his fellow agents the only thing that kept his voice from cracking.

"Now that that's settled," Fury said. "Captain, will you escort these two agents to their temporary residence?"

Hill stood with Fury as they watched the three leave for the helicopter that would transfer them to Avengers Tower.

"Well, that went better than I expected," she commented.

Fury grunted quietly.

"Maybe this will accomplish two purposes, sir," Maria said. "Keep them safe and acclimate Barton to the Avengers."

"The first, yes," he replied. "The second, we can only hope."


	7. Chapter 7

Clint wasn't at all surprised to see Sitwell waiting for them at the helicopter pad. He actually found it almost comforting to know that Fury still trusted the man. This meant that Clint could still trust the same people he'd always trusted and, as had always been, everyone else was questionable. Of course, now there was at least one among those who was up to something Clint could only make a guess at.

When they arrived at the newly named Avengers Tower, they found Tony and Bruce waiting on the roof heli-pad. Two geniuses, but complete opposites, Clint thought, as he stared at them. Tony was bouncing on the balls of his feet, his usual big, stupid grin on his face, looking like a kid on Christmas morning; Bruce, subdued, with his normal slight smile that made him look as if he expected everything to fall apart at any moment.

Natasha and Clint grabbed their bags and exited the helicopter with Steve. The blades whipped the air as Sitwell lifted off and returned to base. They watched Tony walked toward them, Clint could see he'd almost opened his arms to them to offer them hugs, or some type of physical contact, but the three agents all gave him looks that told him that if he wanted to live he'd do best to keep his hands off of them.

Clearing his throat instead he welcomed them and led them into the heli-pad lobby. They crossed it quickly and entered the lift. Stark pushed a button for the Penthouse, then a panel slid open and he pressed his hand against the revealed scanner. After the scan was verified the computer prompted him for his name for voice recognition.

"Anthony Stark," Tony said into the air. "And four guests."

After that they were each prompted to say their names. Once the computer verified their voices, the elevator began its ascent to Tony's floor, or so Clint assumed. Instead, the doors opened to a level he didn't remember from their last visit. Not surprising, though. It had looked as if the billionaire had had people working overtime to fix the damage to his building. In less than a month, Clint figured it would look as if it had never been the center of an epic battle.

In grand style, Tony walked into the main living area. Turning around, with his hands outstretched he announced, "This is all yours."

Clint and Natasha stopped their advance into the room abruptly.

"Whose?" Natasha asked, obviously unclear as to whom Tony was referring.

"Both of you," Stark smiled his best million dollar smile at them.

The tension level in the room became immediately palpable as the two assassins stared in surprise at their would-be benefactor. Clint wasn't sure how to respond. There was nothing romantic between the two of them, yet. But Tony seemed to be inferring something entirely different. He must have anticipated this and he started toward a hallway leading away from the main living area.

"First door on the left here is for the Widow," he said.

They stood before the closed door and Clint waited for Tony to open it. Instead Stark turned to the two of them and said, "It will only open with a retinal scan from one of you."

Hawkeye was taken aback. Tony really seemed to have thought of everything. But the agent was still curious as to why Tony would allow access to either of them, not that he minded, but he wondered what the man was trying to imply.

Natasha stepped up to the screen and the door opened as the scan completed. Clint followed her inside the room and nearly slammed into her back as she stopped suddenly. His first reaction was one of alert. Natasha's energy seemed to be telling him that something unexpected had just occurred. But then he looked around and saw what had stunned her in the first place. Clint felt his mouth slightly open in surprise. The room was beautifully appointed, but Spartan. Everything appeared to be the finest quality, but everything was practical and functional. There were no unnecessary trappings or ornaments: A bed, a desk, some chairs. On the wall to the right of the bedroom door, was a door leading to the bath, next to that was a door opened to reveal a decent sized, but not large, walk-in closet. The colors were various hues of grey and silver. It was, Clint thought, perfect for Natasha, as she dropped her bag on the bed, signaling her acceptance.

He turned and looked at Stark again and saw the man's victorious smile. Clint just shook his head in awe. He wanted badly to ask Tony how he had known Natasha so well. Hawkeye knew that she certainly hadn't given the appearance of practicality when she was on assignment undercover at Stark Industries. But then he remembered that she had spent nearly a week with the man while Clint himself was under Loki's control.

That thought shook something in Clint and Banner must have noticed it because he quickly said, "Pepper planned the room."

Natasha turned to the doctor and smiled. Clint wanted to tell him that he thought Pepper was a very perceptive woman, but Tony beat him to it, and added with a wink, "Wait until you see your room, Legolas."

Clint's room was on the same side of the hallway as Natasha's. As they approached the door, he began to feel a sense of unreasonable dread. He had an odd urge to reach out and grab Natasha's hand. The two of them never made any sort of physical contact in front of anyone else, even Coulson. Hawkeye had never even thought of doing so before, even after an intense battle, or an injury that had placed one of them in the infirmary.

Just then he felt a strong hand on his right shoulder and looked over to see Dr. Banner smiling slightly at him as if trying to convey that things were going to be fine. Bruce had become, during the days following the battle, one of the few people Clint had ever allowed to touch him in his life. He had a short list. Natasha and Coulson were the only two who had been on it since Bobbi had died.

Taking a deep breath, Clint stepped up to the retinal scanner and the computer opened the door. When he hesitated to go in, Natasha rolled her eyes at him and walked in ahead of him. Just as she walked in the rest of them heard her whistle a low whistle of surprise and she said, "Wow." Clint's curiosity got the best of him and he quickly followed her in.

The layout on the floor of the room was almost identical to Natasha's. A bed, a desk and some chairs were set about, and the bath and closet were in similar locations. What was unique were not the colors, they were the typical black and brown and tan; the materials were leather and suede, so typical of what one might consider a "man cave." The uniqueness was in the upper part of the room. Above their heads the ceiling went on for another two floor lengths, curving up over them, and was nothing but window. Where the ceiling in Natasha's room was, there was instead a loft like structure along the base of the two story window.

"There's a roof access door at that end," Tony said as he pointed to the right end of the loft. "You can go around the entire perimeter of this level of the building from there."

Clint turned to Tony who didn't look like he had in Natasha's room, when he'd looked ready to crow. Now he looked almost hesitant, maybe even hopeful. Clint realized then that Stark had put a lot of thought into what Clint would need to feel like he belonged here. He gave the billionaire a tight smile and turned to look at the room again. He thought that if only there was vent access, he'd be perfectly happy. That's when he saw it. About 5 feet above the loft, at the opposite end of the door, there appeared to be a 3 ft by 2.5 ft cutout in the wall. To be honest, if he hadn't been looking hopefully for it, he might not have seen it. He chuckled lightly and shook his head before turning back to Tony and his hopeful look.

"You really outdid yourself, Stark," he told the man, as he too set his bag down on the bed.

He watched as Tony relaxed and the smile came back to his face.

"Great," he said. "Glad you approve. Now let's go see the rest."

"The rest?" Natasha and Clint asked in unison.

Tony just grinned and turned for them to follow as he said, "Bring your, uh, bow and quiver."

Clint looked at Natasha who raised an eyebrow at him, but he did as Stark commanded.

Across from Clint's door was another door which also required a retinal scan and a palm scan and voice verification from Clint or Natasha. They both looked at each other wondering why this was as secure as the entry through the lift had been, but when they walked in, they knew.

In the middle of the room was a sparring pad, some exercise equipment to the left of the door. To the right of the door was a weapon's vault, the door opened to reveal the contents. They could see that there were already a few guns and boxes of ammunition in there. The Black Widow went in to check what was contained and Clint laughed when he heard her whistle again. She came back out with a look of more surprise than her bedroom had caused her.

Beyond the exercise equipment there was another door that Tony was now practically skipping over to. He was obviously happy he had been able to please the two of them so far and he seemed pretty sure what was behind that door would be icing on the cake.

Walking in behind him, the two assassins were surprised again. It was a long, wide room. Around the walls there were several targets situated at various distances. Some for handgun and some for arrows as well. They both looked at Tony who now looked more pleased with himself than Clint thought he ever could.

He leaned in toward Clint and wiggled his eyebrows and said, "But wait, there's more."

Behind Tony, Bruce coughed in embarrassment for his friend at the corny turn of phrase. Then Stark turned on his heel and practically ran out the door. By the time the four of them had walked out the door to the shooting gallery, Tony was already across the room to the far corner where there was still yet another door. Clint wasn't sure he was ready for anymore Tony surprises. The man had been one of the only people Clint had ever known who had left him dumbfounded. He couldn't even begin to guess what was behind door number five, or was this number six?

Tony was impatiently waiting, beckoning exaggeratedly with his arms for them to get over to where he was standing quickly. Clint laughed quietly and picked up his pace. Granting Tony this small request seemed the least he could do.

Upon arriving, Tony informed Clint that only he had access to this room. It required all three of the security requirements they had seen so far, plus one more. Tony was practically jumping out of his skin at this point and even Natasha couldn't hold back a smile and a small laugh.

"OK," Tony informed them. "Everyone needs to step back from the door toward the middle of the room."

After they had complied, Tony gestured to Clint to walk to the opposite side of the room from the door with him.

"You'll need your bow and an arrow," Tony told him.

Clint gave him a confused look, but Tony just flashed another smile and pointed toward the door. Hawkeye stared in surprise. From this angle, and only this angle, he could see an almost miniscule mark on the door. He turned to Tony.

"You see it, right?" Tony asked.

"Well, yes," Clint replied. "Don't you?"

Tony shook his head. It was as Clint thought, so small that a person with normal eyesight couldn't see it. He turned to Natasha, their argument from yesterday morning playing in his head. She just smiled a small smile, but he knew she was going to give him an "I told you so" lecture after the other three men had left.

Clint took his bow off his shoulder and pulled out an arrow from his quiver. Nocking it in, he pulled back and let the arrow fly. As it hit and the door opened, Tony let out a loud "Whoop" and jumped excitedly in the air.

"It works," he yelled. "Yes!"

Clint looked at him incredulously.

"You didn't know it would work?" he asked.

"Well, of course, not," Tony said as if it was obvious. "How was I going to hit that target?"

"Um, you're IronMan suit?" Clint shrugged at him.

At this both Bruce and Steve started to laugh and Tony blushed.

"Let's not talk about that right now, OK," he said quietly as he leaned closer to Clint indicating he didn't want to rehash, in front of witnesses, what had happened when he'd tried just that.

Clint now walked back over to the room and pulled the arrow out of the door. He noticed that the hole closed back over, leaving only the tiny mark. As he stepped into the room, what he saw made his breath hitch. Inside was the most amazing machine shop he had ever seen. Even though SHIELD had always had good tools and machines for him to work with, these were all top of the line. Some of which he'd only wished he could have before.

"Whatever you need," Tony said as he stood just outside the door behind Clint, as if to reinforce the idea that this room was only for Hawkeye. "Just let me know, it's yours."

The archer wasn't sure what to say more than, "Thank you." So he left it at that. Any more words and he was afraid he'd embarrass himself. The only person left in this world with whom he'd be comfortable choking on his words was Natasha. The only other person in his life who had ever gone out of his way to make sure the archer knew he was accepted had been Coulson.

The group walked back out to the main living area. Tony showed them the well-stocked kitchen and bar, the balcony facing west off the living room, which Clint thought Natasha would prefer since she was a sunset person.

Before Tony, Bruce, and Steve left, Tony invited the two agents to dinner on his level. Clint looked to Natasha who returned a look of approval. When he turned back to accept the offer, he saw Steve smiling and shaking his head. Bruce and Tony looked from the Captain to the quiet, but smiling, agents.

"I guess I'll have to find out what that's about later," Tony mumbled.

Turning to Clint and Natasha he said, "So, I'll see you at dinner then."

The two nodded as they watched the three men board the elevator.

Once they were alone, Clint and Natasha both visibly relaxed. Natasha walked over to the kitchen and began to look through the pantry.

"No boxed mac & cheese," she said over her shoulder to Clint.

He laughed and walked into the pantry behind her. It was the size of a small walk-in closet. Clint had never lived in a place with, well, anything as big as what he'd seen here today. At least not something designed with only two people in mind.

"You need to give up that nasty habit anyway," he jokingly chided her.

He reached around her and pulled a bag of pasta and a jar of sauce off the shelf in front of her.

"Not exactly homemade," he commented. "But it'll do."

"Of course, Martha Stewart," Natasha mocked him as the two turned and walked out into the kitchen.

Clint found a pasta pot in one of the cabinets and began to fill it with water.

Natasha watched him for a moment before she announced she was going to take a shower while he fixed up their lunch. Clint just nodded as he put the pot on the stove top and turned the burner on beneath. He found another pan to heat the sauce in and set that aside. Returning to the pantry, he found a loaf of French bread and some garlic. He set the items on the prep counter next to the stove, Then he went to get some butter from the refrigerator, which was far too big, in his opinion for two people, let alone two people who were hardly ever "home."

But, maybe they'd be 'home" more than usual now, Clint thought. He hadn't asked Fury if they were allowed to leave Stark's high-rise, mostly because if Fury had told him "no" Clint would have been forced to be insubordinate. If Fury really wanted him to stay put, he'd have to lock him up in a cell where his partner couldn't find him, and then knock him unconscious.

By the time the meal was ready Natasha had returned to the kitchen. She was dressed in a loose white t-shirt and a pair of grey sweat pants. Her feet were bare, which made Clint smile. Bare feet meant she was relaxed here, she felt safe. As she walked past Clint, he smelled her shampoo and turned to her.

"Please tell me you used the shampoo from your own bag," he said.

Natasha gave him a perplexed look.

"Yeah," she said. "Why?"

"Oh, thank god," Clint sighed in relief. "I don't know if I could take Stark knowing that much about us."

Natasha laughed and took a plate of pasta from him, walking over to the table she sat down in a chair facing him and the kitchen. Clint set his own plate and the bread down before returning to the fridge and grabbing two beers for them.

"What," Natasha said in an airy voice. "No wine?"

Clint raised his eyebrows in reply.

"Does the lady prefer wine?" he said in a similar tone. "Coz babe, have they got wine."

Natasha laughed again, this time at the incongruity of his voice and his words and they started on their meal.

Sitting in their normal comfortable silence, they ate as they took measure of their surroundings. It was an ingrained habit in both of them and they'd been doing it since they'd exited the elevator with Stark and company earlier. But then it had been to assess the threat level. Where could someone break in? What were the points of weakness? Were there any serious vulnerabilities?

Now though, they were both relaxed and instead looked around in appreciation of all the work Tony and Pepper had gone to in order to make the two of them feel at home here. Clint new Natasha very well, and he knew she was as overwhelmed by the gesture as he was.

Finally they finished their meal and their appraisals. After leaving Natasha with her usual task of washing dishes after his meal prep, Clint went to shower himself. He made quick work of it, appreciating the computerized "butler," Jarvis, that made it easier to adjust to a new shower. Clint never understood why there just wasn't a single, universal way to design shower faucets. Then, remembering what Natasha had told him about the computer program he wondered if he should find a way to switch it off in their apartment. If Jarvis reported everything that happened there to Stark, well, Clint wasn't entirely comfortable with that. It was more invasive than SHIELD had ever been, and that was saying a lot.

When he finished dressing in clothes similar to Natasha's he left his room and found his partner in the living room sitting on the comfortable looking tan sectional. She was staring over the back, out the window to the balcony, but turned and smile up at him as he walked in.

For a moment, Hawkeye was nervous. He wondered where he should sit, because where he chose would speak volumes now that he had allowed himself to cross an emotional line with her. He wondered if she was sorry for that now. After hearing how he had treated Bobbi, did she regret her feelings for him? He knew Natasha well and had figured her first thought at his abandonment of his wife would have been that she herself had done far worse things than what Bobbi did for far worse reasons than vengeance. They hadn't had any time to talk since he'd finally shared what happened with her. He wondered if she still felt she could trust him? Did she still feel the same level of loyalty to him?

Natasha cocked her head to the left and smiled. Clint furrowed his brow. That was usually his move over the years when Natasha had so often been hesitant around him. He realized she was returning the favor and walked over to her, sitting on her left so she was already facing his direction. She took his hand in hers.

"I've been thinking about what we should do next," she told him, her green eyes as strong as ever as she again tried to remind him that they were in this together.

"That's funny," he replied. "I've been trying not to think about it at all."

Natasha leaned her head down onto his shoulder and Clint took her into his arms for the first time since they'd returned to New York. It had never mattered to him before when they returned from missions if they couldn't be alone together. He could wait, sometimes for days or weeks, before he held her again. He wasn't sure if this was the stress of what had happened before they left New York, or if it was the emotions he had begun to allow himself to feel for her, but he was glad to already have her this close again.

"We really need to stay focused," she said, as if she read his thoughts.

The interpretation of that, Clint thought, was 'This is why SHIELD breaks up emotionally compromised agents.'

He sighed and said, "I know. I just wish we had time to sort through the last mess."

"You know it doesn't always work out that way," Natasha said, and Clint could hear in her voice that she was trying to convey that she knew he was stronger than he felt right now.

He stilled himself for several minutes as he allowed all the thoughts he had shoved to the back of his head since he'd heard Captain America tell him of Mephisto's escape flood into the forefront of his thoughts.

Finally he said, "It just doesn't make any sense."

Natasha pulled away slightly to look up. She appeared confused.

"It seems like a simple case of revenge to me," she told him.

"Really?" Clint questioned. "Why?"

Natasha paused as he appeared to think on that, and Clint realized what was causing her confusion.

"I had nothing to do with his capture, arrest, or trial," he told her.

She opened her mouth as if she would speak, but then shut it and shook her head looking even more confused now that she had an explanation. Clint could think of no reason Mephisto would mark him. He had avoided the trial, even though Coulson said his presence might help sway the jury. Hawkeye had known, though, that there was no way he could control himself if he was in the same room with the man. He had spent months fantasizing about shooting arrows through various parts of the man's anatomy. If he had ever seen him again, Clint was certain he would act on those thoughts.

Natasha leaned back against his chest and they held each other on the sofa for a long time, each trying to think of a plausible explanation to what was happening; neither being successful. Finally, Clint felt Natasha's mood shift abruptly. She pushed away from him and stood up.

"Let's spar," she said in a voice that held no question as to his response. And she waited for none, but walked down the hall to the gym.

Clint followed her into the room and for a moment he again hesitated. Though the two of them had fought for practice for many years, they hadn't since their life or death struggle on the catwalk inside the helicarrier a few weeks earlier.

Natasha walked to the far side of the mat and turned to him. On her face was her usual wicked grin, the one that everyone at SHIELD thought she used for all her marks, but Clint knew the difference between that look and the one she had only for him during their sparring matches. This wasn't how she had looked when they'd fought on the helicarrier. Then her look had been one of fear and desperation masked in determination.

He looked at her as she patiently waited for him to work through his demons. And for the first time he realized that what he felt for Natasha was so much stronger and deeper than anything he had ever felt for Bobbi, and that was even before he had allowed himself to open up to the idea of something more than friendship between him and his Russian partner. This should have stunned and upset him, instead it calmed and focused him. He returned her grin as he stepped onto the mat.


End file.
